


The Lonely Years

by Atunenamedclara



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Loneliness, Multi, Other, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:53:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6107077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atunenamedclara/pseuds/Atunenamedclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do you run when there's nowhere left to go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely Years

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this soon after Hell Bent but I never posted it so if not now then when? Enjoy!

  
I never meant to do it you know. I didn’t want to kill Clara Oswald. I liked her, she was my friend, in the sense of a friendship which evolves over years of me watching out for when she doesn’t know I’m doing it. Is that friendship? Or could I be arrested for harassment and stalking? Who knows. All I know now is that I could be arrested for murder. 

I kept my people quiet at first. The people of Trap Street. I told them that Clara had to die; it was for the best, her death kept us safe. They believed me at first, until one day, they didn’t. They started quietly, muttering, spitting on the ground if I walked past them, disdainful looks cast in my direction. I thought maybe if I ignored it then it would go away, we could go back to how we were before. When their fear for me came from a place of love, not a place of hatred. But that never happened. Instead, I was driven out of my own house, from the street I created and back into the world of modern day England, a fast and hard world, a world which suited my needs perfectly. 

It was easier to hide from the Doctor during those years. More people, busier streets, more cars to duck behind if I ever heard that blue box of his. But those years ended too fast. They always do when you can never die.

The Human race spread amongst the stars, far and wide, from the smallest star cluster to groupings of one thousand planets, huge nebulas, entire solar systems away from the tiny planet known as earth.  

In some ways it is easier to hide when your race no longer stand together. There are more planets to run to, more stars to explode, taking away his attention when you think he’s coming for you. More ways to distract yourself when the guilt of the death you never meant to cause overcomes you.  

But in other ways it is harder. The planets are emptier, the people more distant. The nights are lonelier and more often than not they are spent alone. Some nights I find comfort in the quiet, but on others, the quiet is drowned out by a roar of beating hearts. The hearts of my children, the hearts of a thousand unborn children which I prevented the birth of. But above all, the heartbeat of Clara. 

And as it always does, time ran away and the universe began to die. The sky blazed red above my head and the ground beneath me burnt. I watched stars die and I watched as mothers held the hands of their children, holding them tight as they burnt into embers so small it was as if they had never existed.  But as others ceased to exist, one person grew stronger in my mind. And as I sat on my chair and watched the universe destroy itself, I could hear her voice. Only, ever, always, her voice. 

It whispered to me from the farthest fire, it called to me from the deepest black hole. I heard it in the shadows when there was no shade left to find and I heard it in the light when the sun had died. “Let me be brave”  It whispered. On and on through the lonely night. It matched the beating of my heart. It grabbed me and would not let me go .

And as everything died I mourned. I mourned the village of my youth, as one only can when they cannot remember what is left to mourn. I mourned for my children, for the accounts of their death written in my own hand, on pages yellowed and stained.  I mourned for the countless lives I outlived and the hearts mine beats over, always, constantly, never stopping. And as I mourned I looked.  At a world I once owned. At a dying flame  At the burnt ash  And I heard one sound.  A sound I have feared since a day, so long ago, in a lonely back street. On the day I have been running from all my life . And I remembered exactly how small the universe is, when there is no universe left.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is a bit different from the usual fic, but stick with me, I'm working on some new things, creative block sucks!


End file.
